Cowboy Dragon Read online

  Did he get off on protecting her, making her feel things she never had before, and then throwing it in her face?

  He hadn’t even said hi since they got to the bar, yet he’d punched someone for her.

  No matter how much she tried to prove herself to him, it always seemed to come back to needing him.

  And she hated the thought of needing any cowboy.

  More tears were coming, and Marian bolted for the door. She heard heavy steps behind her, and she didn’t know if she wanted to be followed or wanted to be left alone right now.

  She supposed she didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

  Out on the porch that overlooked the quiet street, she stopped, letting the cool air wash over her as the steps slowed and she heard a heavy, male exhale behind her.

  “I had it handled, you know. You don’t have to come flying in like Superman every time a man even looks at me.” She looked away from the cowboy. The last thing she needed was his teasing smirk right now.

  Or worse, his indifference.

  Instead, she felt a large, warm hand gently envelop her own, turning her to face Harrison. She wanted to pull her hand back, but his touch was so gentle, so soft, it caught her totally off guard.

  “You aren’t hurt, are you?” Instead of judgement, his eyes were full of care as he raised her hand, caressing it with callused fingers that teased her skin and made all the bad memories go away.

  For a moment, he just looked her over, like he needed to see she was completely fine with his own two eyes. Even his breath was warm, flitting in wisps over her hand and wrist.

  “No. Just my pride, which seems to be broken lately.”

  He smiled gently at her, eyes still bright blue even beneath the shade of his gray Stetson. “I can mend a lotta things, Miss West. Pride is one I’m still workin’ on.” He finally released her hand, and she folded her arms, already missing the sensuous ways her skin reacted to his touch.

  “I know you’re avoiding me, Harrison.” After his little stunt, after seeing the utter calm in him mere moments after he’d laid another man out with supreme ease, all for her sake, Marian was no longer going to run from the truth.

  The truth that she felt something for him.

  And she was damned if he didn’t feel something for her too.

  “What did I ever do or say to make you avoid me like the plague?” she asked.

  “Maybe it’s not because of something you did.” He took a half step forward, waves of energy emanating off him like a heat lamp. One that could burn her if she got too close. “Maybe it’s because of something I feel. Something so strong I’m afraid I’ll do something we both might regret.”

  The last chorus of the song on the jukebox faded out, and a moment later, a different song came on from inside the bar. A slow song, one she’d never heard before, a rhythmic melody about love found in unexpected places.

  His words echoed in her mind like a banging drum.

  Something we both might regret.

  He knew how she felt about cowboys. She knew how he felt about people in general. And he had every right to his peace and quiet, if that was all he wanted.

  But standing in front of her, his gaze raking up and down her body, his expression unguarded and intense, Marian felt they both had strong reasons to abandon those prejudices.

  “Dance with me?” He raised a hand for her to take, leaving it hanging in the air, requiring her to join him of her own free will.

  “I don’t dance with cowboys.”

  “Maybe these cowboys you speak of can’t all be so bad.” His face was so unbearably handsome as the shadows from the street and the light from the bar caught his perfect features in stark relief. He didn’t move a muscle, just let his hand hang above her, all hers for the taking if she wanted it.

  “Maybe just one in particular,” she muttered. With that, she reached up and took his strong, engulfing palm, and immediately, his other hand was on her hip, pulling them together as little fireworks went off all up and down her body.

  Whatever happened tonight, Marian decided there and then that she wasn’t going to run from her past anymore.

  Tonight, she was going to live.

  9

  Harrison could still barely contain the rage that’d been boiling inside him from the moment he’d seen that lousy, lowdown punk grab Marian from across the bar. He wanted to teach each and every man that thought women were just cattle to be wrangled a lesson they’d never forget. With his fists.

  But Marian’s soft body, hovering next to his as her hand held his and his other hand tightened slightly around her curvy hip, was an overload on his senses that kept him anchored in the moment.

  After all, he’d seen the way she’d slapped the dickens out of that guy. She was a true fighter, someone who rolled with the punches and never quit. Even hobbled, car broken down, and surrounded by coyotes, a week ago she’d had the gall to stand up to him in ways no human ever dared to face him in his entire life.

  From that moment, he’d been hooked on her. The way her pretty hazel eyes narrowed whenever she caught him watching her. The way her hips swayed when she was throwing sass at the other men in his crew. On her genuine smile of appreciation and joy when she got something right or when something made her laugh.

  A person unlike any other.

  The music from the bar joined them, alone, out in the night air in front of the bar as he swayed back and forth with Marian. He tried to keep his frame rigid, but she was moving closer to him with each second, like two magnets destined to collide.

  “What was bothering you, back inside before those assholes showed up?” Harrison asked, too curious to not know what had been on her mind. He’d been watching like a hawk, out of sight, hoping to avoid… well, this.

  But now that they were here, together, he was soaking up every second of it.

  “Just thinking.” She finally pressed her soft body to his, resting her head on his shoulder, and the sight was beautiful, so tender it almost broke him right there.

  “About?”

  She paused, still moving with him to the music. “About my dad. He’s five years buried now, and there isn’t a day I don’t think about him still.”

  Harrison wrapped his arms around the small of her back, supporting her tiny body against him. “It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling. I’m here.”

  She looked up at him with doubt and curiosity, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree. You don’t act like you’ve ever lost anyone, Harrison.”

  The truth was actually much worse.

  A long time ago, he’d made fast friends of everyone. But time and death had taught him that nothing lasted forever, especially when it came to humans.

  A hard life had made him hard, and until he’d met this tiny hellion, there was nothing and no one that would’ve changed his mind about humans not being worth his time.

  Now? He wasn’t so sure.

  “Just because I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve doesn’t mean I don’t feel things deeply, missy.” She opened her mouth to say something sassy, and instead, he just twirled her in his arms and dipped low as the song’s chorus hit a crescendo. “But it takes a truly strong person to show their heart fiercely, like you do.” They were almost horizontal now, her eyes wide as he held her easily with one hand. “So never change, Marian.”

  He pulled her back up, amused at her shocked expression that he knew how to dance.

  She shocked him back by wrapping both her arms around his neck, putting her ample chest against his and bringing their faces to look directly at each other. He couldn’t help but hold her hips steady, his hands itching to go lower and cup her rounded ass.

  Dammit, he was getting so hard she was bound to notice at some point.

  Then again, he wasn’t the only one feeling something right now either.

  Just keep dancin’, Harrison.

  “There you go again, quiet when you want to be, then full of fancy compliments when I leas
t expect it.” She bit her lower lip slightly, and he wanted nothing more than to reach down and kiss her senseless. To drag his teeth over that lip and find all her secret, sensitive places.

  “Gotta keep you on your feet, don’t I?” He grinned, and even in the shadows outside the bar, he could see her blush a little.

  She looked away from him but just held him closer. They were hip to hip now, wrapped around each other like a tumbleweed caught in barbed wire.

  She’d rolled into his life on western wind with no direction, no set course. And he was like a prickly fence, barbs to keep people from getting too close to him, a wall meant to keep people out.

  But Marian was getting dangerously close to crossing that fence. A fence no one else had ever crossed.

  Her scent was that of wild daisies and fresh spring water. He could feel her pulse starting to race, body warming as the song reached its final stanza. And the longer they were here like this, the more he knew they would reach the point of no return.

  This was what he’d feared from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  That he’d fall for this woman. For this human. Fragile and weak and vulnerable, all the things he wasn’t as an immortal dragon. Things he couldn’t afford to be out on the range, where life could kick you to the curb in an instant if you weren’t careful.

  For some reason, those things just made him want Marian more. Her strength in the face of hardships, her fight in the face of impossible odds, were just a mind-bending contrast to the fact she was human.

  Marian looked into the bar, noting a handful of people were just staring like a bunch of rubberneckers.

  “It’s awkward to dance like this, just the two of us and no one else.”

  Harrison didn’t give two fucks what other people did with their time. Marian was all that mattered. “I don’t care if everyone’s looking or not. All I’m thinking about right now is you, honey.”

  Her eyes widened, steps slowing as the music began to fade. “Thinking what?”

  “How much I want to do this.”

  At that, he raised a hand to her cheek, caressing it with his thumb as his fingers entwined with her soft brown hair. She gasped, craning her neck up to him, lips parted, eyes full of hunger and want.

  Stop me, Marian. Before I get in too deep.

  His lips crashed over hers, bringing them together in an intense kiss so hot it was like a cattle brand on his heart. She moaned against him, the sound muffled, driving him deeper as his tongue slid between her lips and clashed with hers.

  For a long moment, she melted in his arms, and he kept her supported with strong hands as he continued to kiss and stroke inside her mouth until she was completely breathless.

  He pulled back, looking down at her swollen lips, her wide eyes. She was practically panting, and Harrison didn’t know if he’d gone too far.

  “I…” He was speechless.

  Harrison had never been speechless in his entire life.

  She answered him by lifting herself on her toes, kissing him back with a rough, inexperienced kiss that made him smile against her mouth even as he dove once more inside her mouth.

  This time, he was in no rush, flicking and searching and devouring her, listening to her mewls and pressing their bodies even closer together.

  It didn’t help that every time he ran his tongue along the top of her mouth, she squeezed her hips against his throbbing cock, making him ravenous and restless to make her come again and again as he filled her with pleasure.

  By the time they finally separated, coming up for air, they were a veritable tangle of arms and ruffled shirts and half-cocked ideas that were going to get them both in trouble. He just knew it.

  “What are you thinking now, Marian?” Her breath was hot on his chest as she looked down him, pondering for a moment before looking back up.

  She reached a finger between them, tracing small circles in the space where the buttons on his shirt had come undone, right over his heart. “I’m thinking about what you look like with just your hat on… and nothing else.”

  That got him, right between the eyes. His dragon was roaring, his body tensed with hungry anticipation.

  “What about you?” Her finger was going lower, unhooking another button, driving him crazy with just the lightest touch.

  He was going to touch her fucking everywhere, twice, just to teach her a lesson about putting her hands on a dragon.

  Mess with a bull? Get the horns.

  Mess with a dragon? Get ready for the heat.

  “The same thing you’re thinking,” he growled, reaching down to nip her ear roughly, hands lowering down her back as he could feel her shiver in sheer need against him. “But without the hat.”

  10

  The decision to jump into Harrison’s truck to head back to the ranch had been a quick and easy one for Marian, and the whole way back, his hand had been on hers, teasing and taunting her and making her wonder what those hands would soon feel like on the rest of her body.

  He stopped in front of the main house, practically skidding in the dirt, then jumped out, came to the passenger-side door, and threw it open.

  “Come with me,” he said in that low, demanding voice that made her giddy with excitement every time he did it. Then he leaned forward, took her mouth in another claiming, searing kiss, and undid her seat belt in the same motion.

  She giggled with nervousness as he wrapped his hands around her hips, then picked her up from her seat like she weighed nothing, even though she knew she was a curvy girl.

  But that seemed to only be a plus for Harrison as his big palms squeezed her ass, and she wrapped her legs around him as he made for the door, his boots pounding the wood steps up to the house.

  “So hot. So beautiful, Marian.” His face was at her neck, sucking and licking and making every nerve in her back go haywire with pleasure.

  He opened the door and carried her like he owned her into the main area, continuing to kiss her hard and heavy, the world spinning around her as she gave in to his touch.

  Harrison was all cowboy when he was out on the ranch.

  But in here, with her, he was all man.

  He paused at the kitchen table, setting her ass on it as his hands ran up her sides, pushing her shirt up with the motion and making the skin on her hips scream for more of… everything.

  Then his palm was on the back of her neck, fingers entwined with her hair as he pulled lightly, the tension on her scalp making her quiver with want as he forced her to look up at those endless sapphire depths a split second before he kissed her again.

  He was as expert with his tongue as he was with every other job he oversaw on his ranch, maybe even more so as it slid over the roof of her mouth and she gasped against him.

  She didn’t even care that her hands were grasping his shirt like a life raft in a storm, pulling him closer as he drank her in like a man lost in the desert.

  When he pulled away, she could feel him tense, though his gaze lowered as the heady magic of the moment broke.

  “Wait, what are we doing? This is crazy.”

  The only thing crazy here was how quickly and how powerfully her body responded to his. How badly she needed him, wanted him everywhere with his hands, his mouth, his…

  “Just giving me what I want, Harrison. What we both want, at least I thought.” He was slipping back into Boss Harrison, the implacable leader of this crew, always logical and harsh and distant from everyone around him.

  But the fact he could have such control even when she was like a tornado of desperate want both intrigued and annoyed Marian at the same time.

  He’d been so sweet and protective back at the bar. And then when he’d kissed her, it was like he’d thrown a stick of dynamite at her reservations just to watch what she looked like when her doubts exploded.

  Here she was, falling into the arms of a cowboy.

  But Harrison was unlike any cowboy she’d met in the whole state of Texas.

  “I intend to, Miss West.” He look
ed torn between taking her lips again and turning away from this altogether. “But what then?”

  “I don’t date cowboys,” she slung at him, seeing what he’d do.

  He just grinned at her, as if accepting the challenge. His hand was holding hers, thumb running down the center of her palm, and Marian had to tense her whole body to not show her reaction to the sensuous touch.

  “Well, I don’t date city slicker rubes.” The air in the house was getting warmer, scorching like they were standing beneath the beating Texas sun even in the dark.

  She didn’t want commitment. Not from him, not from anyone right now.

  But she wanted to forget the bar. Forget the memories of the past and her father and all the years of running.

  Forge new memories, crazy ones where she could simply be herself and take what she wanted with no consequences, even if it was with the frustratingly sexy Harrison.

  The only man that could make her break her first and only rule.

  “I can give you want you want,” Harrison said, bringing his forehead to touch hers, shading her beneath the brim of his Stetson. “But I can’t promise it won’t be so good you’ll be begging for more. That I’ll ruin every other man for you forever.”

  Men had only been trouble. Harrison was just double, the kind of mistake you never regretted because at least you knew you were living in the moment.

  “I’d like to see you try, mister bigmouth, all talk and no—ah!” His hands were holding both of hers, trapping them at her sides just as he licked up the shell of her ear, making her entire body jump from arousal.

  “Oh, I don’t try.” He nibbled, then kissed the base of her ear, a tiny spot she’d never known was so sensitive until this damn cowboy had had the gall to find it. “I succeed. That’s why I’m the boss.”

  He kissed harder, longer, and she wriggled against his grip, unable to escape each brush of his lips over her skin until he’d worked her into a frenzy so hot she could come at any moment.

  But even as she watched Harrison’s intense eyes close and open, watching her every movement, Marian got the feeling that nothing could bring this stubborn man to his knees unless he wanted it. A mountain that bowed to no one, yet was oddly tender when he wanted to be, and as overwhelming a lover as a tornado on the prairie.